The success of Hotel Transylvania 2 proved that family-friendly horror-themed movies stand to make a whole bunch of cash when released in the vicinity of Halloween. Now, Goosebumps is here to ensure that we’ll be getting slightly scary kids’ movies every October for the foreseeable future. The adaptation of the popular book series opened at number one, riding a wave of nostalgia and family appeal to a very strong start, beating out some pretty serious competition.

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

1

Goosebumps

$23,500,000

$6,712

$23,500,000

2

The Martian

$21,500,000 (-42%)

$5,809

$143,795,000

3

Bridge of Spies

$15,380,000

$5,471

$15,380,000

4

Crimson Peak

$12,846,000

$4,305

$12,846,000

5

Hotel Transylvania 2

$12,250,000 (-40%)

$3,467

$136,409,000

6

Pan

$5,860,000 (-62%)

$1,667

$25,738,000

7

The Intern

$5,405,000 (-38%)

$1,997

$58,730,000

8

Sicario

$4,500,000 (-41%)

$2,113

$34,662,000

9

Woodlawn

$4,100,000

$2,640

$4,100,000

10

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

$2,750,000 (-49%)

$1,398

$75,411,000

With a three-day haul of $23 million, Goosebumps took the number one spot, barely edging out the still-going-strong The Martian. That’s a good start for a film budgeted at $58 million and if word of mouth is strong, it could play well until deep into November. Goosebumps should play very strong for at least the next two weeks as families look for ways to celebrate the season at the multiplex. Since most seasonal fare of this kind tends to skew R-rated, this is a starving audience.

The success of Goosebumps does not diminish The Martian, which landed at number two with $21 million. The fact that Matt Damon’s sci-fi adventure almost took the top spot for the third weekend in a row is impressive stuff. With $143 million in the bank right now, it’ll cross $150 million next weekend while on the road to a final domestic gross of $200 million-plus.

Less impressive are Bridge of Spies and Crimson Peak, both of which opened to somewhat disappointing numbers ($15 million and $12 million, respectively). The silver lining here is that both films were made for reasonable budgets. Bridge of Spies skews to an older crowd, an audience that tends to take their sweet time getting out to the theater. Unless something totally derails it, the latest from Steven Spielberg has a strong shot at recouping its $40 million budget and then some. Crimson Peak is trickier. Genre movies tend to have huge drop-offs following their opening weekend and Guillermo del Toro’s “gothic romance” is going to be the victim of false advertising. Those who did see it this weekend hoping for a straight horror movie aren’t going to tell their friends to go see it.

In fifth place, Hotel Transylvania 2 continued performing well, collecting another $12 million for a $136 million total. Like Goosebumps, it’ll get a bump over the next two weekends. Unlike The Martian, it probably won’t have the juice to reach $200 million, but that’s okay. It’s already made enough to justify a part three.

And then we come to Pan, which dropped a massive 62 percent in its second weekend, solidifying its status as one of the biggest bombs of 2015. With only $25 million in two weeks, it won’t even come close to recouping its $150 million budget. Unfortunately, it has to keep on bombing in public — at least The Walk quietly exited the top 10, never to be seen again.

Still, there are some minor winners in the back half of the top 10. The Intern continued to do slow but steady business and it’ll cross $60 million in the next day or two. Sicario and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials followed suit, doing rock solid (if unspectacular) business. And then there’s Woodlawn, proving that not every faith-based movie gets to be War Room.

Next week sees the expansion of Steve Jobs, which almost broke into the top 10 in limited release this weekend. This doesn’t guarantee its success in wide release, but don’t be surprised if it easily snatches the top spot a week from today.